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Del. Otto Wachsmann won the opportunity Tuesday, Nov. 7, to represent the state’s 83rd District in the Virginia House of Delegates, and his victory came by a substantial margin.

With only provisional and post-election votes outstanding as of Wednesday morning, Nov. 8, unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections noted that Wachsmann defeated Democrat Mary L. Person with 58.97% of the vote.

Wachsmann, a Republican, is currently the delegate representing District 75, a seat to which he was elected in 2021. With his inaugural two-year term in the House of Delegates coming to a conclusion, he opted to run for the House District 83 seat, which, after redistricting, closely resembles the old District 75. 

“We’re excited,” Wachsmann said Tuesday night of his new electoral victory. “It’s a new district. We’ve worked really hard at it, and I’m just excited that I’ve got the opportunity to build more on what I’ve done for the past two years. It takes a couple of years to learn the ropes around the General Assembly; we’ve done that, and now we can really move forward to bring good things to the people of 83.”

The Virginia Public Access Project noted that House District 83 is made up of part of Isle of Wight County, including 22,233 registered voters, representing a 33.59% share of the district; all of Southampton County, including 13,205 registered voters, representing a 19.95% share of the district; all of Brunswick County, including 11,048 registered voters, representing a 16.69% share of the district; all of Sussex County, including 7,135 registered voters, representing a 10.78% share of the district; all of Greensville County, including 6,412 registered voters, representing a 9.69% share of the district; all of the city of Emporia, including 3,998 registered voters, representing a 6.04% share of the district; and part of Dinwiddie County, including 2,167 registered voters, representing a 3.27% share of the district.

Wachsmann earned more votes than Person in Southampton, Dinwiddie, Isle of Wight, Sussex and Greensville, while Person earned more in Emporia and Brunswick. Wachsmann’s largest margin of victory came in Southampton County, where he earned 67.15% of the vote, winning 4,693 to 2,296.

In response to a candidate questionnaire asking him why he decided to run for the 83rd District seat, Wachsmann shared the following response.

“I decided to run for the House of Delegates from my experience as a resident in the district,” he stated. “I grew up in my father’s independent pharmacy, and I have been involved in the community since I started working at that store when I was 7 years old. Later after pharmacy school, I worked as a pharmacist there. In 1995 my family moved to the Winchester, Virginia, area where my wife worked for Shenandoah University’s main campus while I began my academic career on faculty developing the Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy at Shenandoah. In 2003 I returned to Stony Creek where I purchased Stony Creek Pharmacy from my father and owned it until 2019.

“It was upon my return that I realized our county, and many of the counties surrounding it, had not moved forward since I had left,” he continued. “I also noticed in the faces of the many patients whom I interacted with that their ambitions had deteriorated. As someone who regularly attended my county’s Board of Supervisors (meetings) and served as a volunteer legislative aid for Del. Harvey Morgan in 1986, once my two daughters were grown, I decided it was time for me to run for the House of Delegates in 2019. While I was unsuccessful my first run, I successfully ran again in 2021, and I am just completing my first two-year term. As my work is not done, I am running again for the newly created 83rd District.”